Saturday, March 21, 2009

Ismaili Businessman caught in Stanford Investment scheme.

Zee's Notes: The last 7-8 years have been, in most accounts, a great time for individuals to make significant economic gains due to one of the greatest economic expansion periods witnessed. Investors took advantage of low interest rates and easy credit to leverage themselves to untold riches. I know of many, many Ismaili's who rode that wave and attained financial success not only in the Western World but also in Asia and Africa. But sadly as we see in the media today that fast moving party has smacked into a wall and now we are starting to see the carnage in the financial markets and in our own individual lives. Falling stock markets and real estate declines are hurting people like I've never witnessed in my lifetime and I remember my father paying 17% mortgage rates in 1982. When times are good a lot of frauds like the Stanford and Madoff ponzi scheme can be hidden but sooner or later the 'fat lady sings' to reveal the fraudsters for what they are - crooks taking advantage of the greed in people.

The Madoff ponzi scheme, which took in the elite Jewish Community, hit home to many Ismailis who got caught in the Salim Damji Colgate fiasco almost 10 years ago. Damji's Instant White fraud (see story here...)soaked $75 million from the Ismaili Community and most of the the money was never recovered. The sad part was that a lot of middle income families and seniors got taken in whilst Madoff was more content to only take down the very richest Jewish elite. Worse is that many of Damji's bag men, those in various cities who solicited (or conned) their friends out of their money are still out there walking though they have lost their reputations in the community.

So we will hear of many stories on these type of frauds in the days ahead and here is one of them...

In the lawsuit, filed on Feb. 25 in Alberta Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary, Dynasty Furniture Manufacturing Ltd., one of Canada's largest manufacturers of upholstered furniture, started in 1979 by East African immigrant Jim Sunderji, seeks damages for misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, conversion, fraudulent conveyance and breach of trust for what it claims is an investment scheme that is "untruthful and inaccurate...read complete story here

Here is another story of an Edmonton Ismaili entrepreneur who is very active in the Vancouver real estate market which, in the last few years, had the greatest uplift in home values in comparison to any large city throughout the globe - yes it was that good...read story here